Standard C doesn't have inline assembly, even though many compilers provide it as an extension. Other languages do.

> After all if everything else is "Just as close as C, but not closer", then just what kind of spectrum are you measuring on

The claim about C being "close to the machine" means different things to different people. Some people literally believe that C maps directly to the machine, when it does not. This is just a factual inaccuracy. For the people that believe that there's a spectrum, it's often implied that C is uniquely close to the machine in ways that other languages are not. The pushback here is that C is not uniquely so. "just as close, but not closer" is about that uniqueness statement, and it doesn't mean that the spectrum isn't there.

> Some people literally believe that C maps directly to the machine, when it does not.

Maybe they did, 5 years (or more) ago when that essay came out. it was wrong even then, but repeating it is even more wrong.

> This is just a factual inaccuracy.

No. It's what we call A Strawman Argument, because no one in this thread claimed that C was uniquely close to the hardware.

Jumping in to destroy the argument when no one is making it is almost textbook example of strawmanning.